1. Technical Field
This invention generally relates to lighted displays for vehicles, and more particularly to see-through outwardly facing, lighted displays for use in vehicle windows.
2. State of the Art
Lighted displays generally are well known in the art. Businesses use lighted “OPEN” and “CLOSED” signs and shaped neon bulbs for signs, companies regularly display their trademarks in lights to draw more attention, and lights displayed behind colored translucent signs are found in nearly every strip mall today. These examples of lighted displays typically include fixed information. In other words, the sign displays one message (or possibly two messages in the case of “OPEN” and “CLOSED” signs), and the lights can only display their given message or light the fixed image printed on the translucent sign board. Relating to lighted vehicle displays see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,604,480 to Thompson and 5,648,756 to Zadok. Many of these signs are also contained within a housing and given a black or dark background to enhance the visibility of the message in the display.
Another example of a lighted information display is that of a marquee. Conventional marquees include an array of light emitting diodes (LEDs) housed in a box that contains all of the electronics for the array. The box and array of LEDs are coupled to a microcontroller that controls which LEDs are “on” and which are “off” at any given time to display particular information on the display, and in some cases the color and intensity of the lights emitted. These types of LED marquees housed in a box are known to be displayed on vehicles (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,590,502 B1 to Pederson (showing an LED display on a police light bar) and 4,868,542 to Thompson (showing an LED display at the bottom of a back car window)) and in store windows. If in a window, such marquees are typically displayed near an edge of the window so the marquee display box does not disrupt the view through the window. The marquee display box is given a dark background to enhance the visibility of the message in the display and hide the electronics contained within the marquee.